MA, Stanford University
Teaching in the San Francisco Bay Area
Alissa is currently a teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area and Brightstorm users love her clear, concise explanations of tough concepts
A ratio compares two quantities, or numbers, and can be written as x:y, x/y, or x to y. Ratios can be used to calculate rate -- how many "x" per unit of "y".
You can use ratios to describe a lot of real life problems and this is just one example. In the 2009 Nathan's hot dog eating competition or contest, Joey Chestnut ate 68 hot dogs in 10 minutes. Find how many hot dogs per minute this is. Holy cow you guys, 68 hot dogs in 10 minutes. Let's figure out what that means.
So one way you could write this using a ratio would be hot dogs to minutes, 68 hot dogs for 10 minutes. You could also write it as a fraction like this if you prefer or you could write it as 68, the word to, and then 10. Those are all 3 different representations of ratios. If you wanted to have this make even more sense in your brain, try reducing this fraction. 68 divided by 10 is the same thing as 6.8 hot dogs per minute. So think about how many hot dogs you can eat in one sitting. I don't know about you guys but I can eat like maybe 2 at a ball game like a dollar dog or whatever. This guy ate 6.8 hot dogs in every minute. That's crazy.
So I like this problem because you get to see how ratios get applied to real life. It's important to notice there's three different ways to write it. All three are equivalent ratio statements.
